Customer Reviews

Kala

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

M.I.A.'s (Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam) amazing debut album, Arular, garnered many dedicated fans. One of them just happened to be mega-producer Timbaland. He was so enthusiastic, in fact, that he wanted to work with her for her sophomore release. Of course Maya obliged and she even cried tears of happiness. But before she could begin collaborating with him, a little--okay, a big--obstacle came up; the Sri Lankan was not allowed to enter the United States for ten months due to visa troubles. Some artists would just quit right then and there, but that's not how she operates. M.I.A. figured that if she couldn't come into the US, then she would go and create her art everywhere else on the globe. And that's what she did. Kala was recorded in many locations, including India, London, Australia, Africa and Trinidad.

Maya's first album, named after her father, was raw and unapologetically fierce. M.I.A. herself admitted the album was rather "masculine." However, Kala is, among other things, softer and more personal. It's only right that she named it after her mother. Maya's father doesn't think mom deserves the privilege. (Supposedly, the two are very competitive). But I would have to disagree with Papa Arulpragasam. When he left his family to become a freedom fighter, his jobless wife had to support her children and provide for them. Not only is she deserving of the title for respect's sake, but also because her struggle is represented in many of the songs. In tracks like "$20," Maya sounds less like the rambunctious girl we met on her debut and more like a tired and slightly bitter mother who has seen the cruelty of the world, trying to find hope and meaning somewhere. But still... there's strength! Power. (In the absolute best way possible, of course).

The album opens perfectly with the minimalist, shuffling mid-tempo beat of "Bamboo Banga." About two minutes into the song, the beat picks up and grows in complexity and Maya announces triumphantly that she is coming back with "powah powah!" (Couldn't have said it better myself). Up next is the energetic "Bird Flu," complete with the chanting of little village girls, booming tribal drums and the "ba-gok!" of chickens. "Boyz" is a fun and quirky summer jam that sounds straight out of a street parade. The track is laced with a collage of drums, an infectious "how many" vocal sample and whistling. "Jimmy" is a slightly reworked/re-written version of a Bollywood song Maya used to sing at parties for money as a child. The disco track is thoroughly entertaining with addictive strings and some electronic beeps added for a modern touch. While it is very different from anything M.I.A. has created before, it is a very welcome addition to the album for me. "Hussel" is the first song on here that takes on the serious tone I mentioned earlier. Over the ominous, synth-heavy production, which sounds straight out of a rainforest, Maya raps about the hustle and grind of raising money to help family and friends in need. Guest artist Afrikan Boy adds a nice universal touch. Speaking of guest artists, "Mango Pickle Down River" has a group of Aboriginal kids, the Wilcannia Mob, rapping with her. They rap about their adventures together over a buzzing, bumbling track. "$20" is the epitome of the tone I mentioned in the second paragraph. It is also probably Kala's most introspective track. Maya, sounding almost defeated, spits out random deep thoughts on her mind. "World Town" is by far the track that best resembles Arular musically. Still, the lyrics fit the album's theme. "The Turn," like many of the other tracks, finds Maya... singing. She actually sounds beautiful and very unique. The lyrics say it all: "Don't bother me with your mess/ I'm trying to do my best/ Get my head up out the stress/ When the money turns the world/ Your lovin' turns to less." The meandering groove is just amazing. "XR2," which she posted on her MySpace earlier this year, is a hyperactive, percolating club track with a catchy sped-up horn sample. Her vocal delivery is almost like her own version of the Ying Yang Twins' "Whisper Song." (Except... much better). "Paper Planes" has already become a fan favorite, and rightfully so. It samples The Clash's "Straight To Hell," it's an extremely catchy song that discreetly speaks on her frustration about the visa situation, the chorus mixes roaring gunshots and cash register "cha-chings!" and it's produced by ex-boyfriend, Diplo. What's not to love? The closing track, "Come Around," is the only one produced by Timbaland. While many of Maya's fans resent the song (while others pretend it doesn't exist), I happen to love it. Sure, it's a little more mainstream than the other stuff, but it's fun, bouncy and her swagger is irresistible. It's a good way too end the album, in my opinion.

Kala is a triumph. M.I.A. was faced with terrible misfortune, but rather than sitting around defeated, she traveled around the world, interacting with the people and recording a diverse, creative and just plain amazing album. This is by far one of--if not the--best CDs I've heard all year. I highly recommend.

Right from the opener 'Bamboo Banger' it's obvious that this is a more confident and assured record, where M.I.A really sets herself no boundaries. The first 3 songs on the album hit you like a storm, and Jimmy arrives at the perfect moment to inject a little disco into the album. Before you know it, the album is over, and all you want to do is hit the rewind button. Sounds, beats, moods and different genres come together to create a soundscape which is both distinct and enthralling. This is truly a global artist who has only began to explore her potential.

If you enjoyed her debut album, then there is no doubt that this will quickly make it's way to the top of your play list. If your just looking for something out of this world in it's brilliance, then pick this up ASAP!!

To understand what makes Kala succeed so brilliantly is to realize why so many anti-war albums fail. Exhorting a message is easy. Getting people to sit up and pay attention is a much more formidable task, one that's proven too tall an order for the likes of the Flaming Lips, Nine Inch Nails, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, From Monument to Masses, and dozens of others. Kala sets itself apart by pulling off the neat hat trick of sounding both urgent and joyous--something that the Sri Lankan M.I.A. (née Maya Arulpragasam) managed to do with 2005's Arular, but which gets presented here to an incredible new extent. Perhaps Arulpragasam became a musician to push a point, but Kala is better poised for a club than for brow-furrowing headphone listening or a street protest; it is music first, a message second.

Surely, Kala is some of the most exciting world-electronica fusion the United States has heard since, well, Arular. The production on "Bird Flu" is so chillingly perfect that you might forget that the song has no melody to speak of. Here and elsewhere, M.I.A. exploits the universal and pleasurable properties of percussion to draw us into Kala's world; unless you actually live there, your knowledge of Sri Lankan music is probably nil, and M.I.A. is the most accessible guide one could hope for. Tribal drumming and modern-day electro exist alongside each other as naturally as oil and vinegar, while M.I.A. plays to and uproots our expectations by taking world music clichés and turning them on their heads, whether it's the hilarious pygmy-like shouts in the war-paint-covered "Bird Flu" or the ersatz strings in the 1982 Bollywood cover, "Jimmy". If anything, Kala hammers home Sri Lanka's status as a hotbed of multiculturalism. Its music is African, Indian, Middle Eastern, British and wryly American all at once, and I can imagine no better environment for an anti-war cry than one in which musical styles coexist this peacefully.

M.I.A.'s exhortation strategy is fresh, uncommon, and sledgehammer-blunt. "Fight on!", the album cover shamelessly reads, and it's clear that M.I.A. considers a move toward peace as literally that: a mobilization that requires as much force as soldiers are willing to devote to a war. Her fight-fire-with-fire approach results in music that's more bracing and confrontational than Arular while still avoiding sounding militaristic, instead coming off like a cheerleading squad that means deathly serious business. M.I.A.'s voice often feels like a drum, pounding away about the price of AK-47s in Africa, forgoing a fashion career for the sake of protest, being hassled about immigration papers and what it might be like to blow up the fighters in her dreams. She stands above the dreck as a paragon of self-confidence, while even allowing some humor to peek through on "Boyz": "How many no money boyz are crazy, how many boyz are raw? / How many no money boyz are rowdy, how many start a war?" (The `z's aren't there for nothing.) Of course, when Nigerian M.C. Afrikan Boy reproachfully spits, "You think it's tough now? Come to Africa" on "Hussel," we don't dare laugh.

Perhaps most phenomenal is how M.I.A. made a better album than Arular by grabbing the reins herself. For Kala, she aligned herself with UK house producer Switch, whose relatively hands-off approach allowed M.I.A. to have a greater say in the production and arrangements than she had on Arular (heretofore considered DJ Diplo's album above all). It shows; Kala sounds like the album M.I.A. wanted to make, all the way down to the slinky swamp song "The Turn." In fact, "Come Around" is the only track I can think of in which Timbaland's foray behind the boards actually makes the song less interesting than what surrounds it. If M.I.A. wasn't an international superstar before Kala's release, she likely will be and certainly deserves to be; this is her album, reflective of her vital personality and compelling statement of purpose at every single turn. In an era riddled with ghostwriting, lip-synching, showboating and O-Town, few recording artists alive are less deserving of M.I.A.'s own namesake than M.I.A.

Over a few years, British musician MIA - aka Mathangi Arulpragasam - has realised far-flung ambitions.
Her 2005 debut album "Arular" proved an electric shock to the system, its ballsy mashup of street styles and pop hooks earning a Mercury nomination in U.K.
Mia's new album "Kala" is named after her mother, but like "Arular" it mixes up musical ideas from around the world and crams them into a club- and radio-friendly collage of tunes.
This CD drives her music in even more intrepid directions
In fact this time, rather than work with British producers such as Steve Mackey of Pulp and the pop guru Richard X, MIA travelled widely to authentically capture the world music that intrigues her.
The result is fantastic.
"Birdflu" features the sound of traditional Indian drummers, whom MIA recorded on a trip to the sub-continent last year.
"Down River" throbs with didgeridoo she recorded at a workshop for aboriginal children in Australia. The tribal pound of "Hussel", meanwhile, was recorded with a Nigerian-born London-based rapper, African Boy.
Whereas "Arular" was dominated by bouncy funk carioca beats, "Kala" feels like a more mixed, cosmopolitan affair.Recorded in India, Australia, Trinidad, Japan, Britain and Baltimore with producers including Switch and Blaqstarr, it sounds like an infectious international travelogue.
Looking at that luminous, vibrant front cover, or the ludicrously colourful video for "Boyz", M.I.A. seems more like a textile artist than anything else.
If the driving force behind her music is a restless, globe-trotting quest for identity, that makes sense - a collage is a beautiful way of drawing disparate pieces together to create a whole that exists as something important in itself.
"Kala" meets the critics head on, taking her dancefloor smash-and-grab sound global.
She twangs the boundaries of taste both lyrically ("Take me on a genocide tour/Take me on a trip to Darfur") and musically. But a knockout's a knockout, however messy the bout.
All in all, Kala is an intense, body-shaking, mind-bending album, far more ambitious than most pop around.
My favourite tracks are "Paper Planes", "20 Dollars" and "Turn".

All these glowing reviews for MIA would lead you to believe that this album is "all that". Well, its not. Its certainly groundbreaking in the same way that a TV show throws up a new story arc and you say "Hey, I've never seen THAT done before!", but the similarity ends there.

That said, this album does have its' moments. First of all, one must be in the right frame of mind to appreciate an album such as this. If youre a fan of simple pop or rock music, I wouldn't really advise this - you might actually get a headache (a couple of my friends I thought would really like it, ended up hating it and calling it a "collection of noises"). However, if you like experimental fusion music, Missy Elliot style beats, and a whole lot of synthesizer, then well, you're in luck.

Make no mistake, MIA is no great vocalist. In fact, her voice is the least interesting thing about her. As a rapper, she is average at best - her quaint English stylings lend the songs a certain something but the novelty of that wears off pretty quickly. What she does have, is excellent production, and shes probably invested in a team to specifically dig up old and obscure records to sample.

Prime example is "Jimmy", which was a track on the hit Bollywood film from the early 1980s "Disco Dancer". I downloaded the original track to compare the two versions, and the shocking thing is that MIA hasn't even bothered to tweak the song a little. In fact, the song is a note for note copy of the original, with MIA's vocals overlapping every now and then. Sure, every kid with a laptop these days could make a song like "Jimmy", but you have to hand it to MIA for doing it first.

"Boyz" is a fun number with Sri Lankan girl choruses. That theme and sentiment runs through the whole record. Verses start and stop - choruses that are supposed to appear don't, and musical interludes take a completely different direction on some songs - all in all, this is an unpredictable and fun record, but its best savored in small doses.

MIA is a novelty act, yes, but you can't deny that her songs sound good on hi-fi equipment. She should really thank her producers - they did a remarkable job getting her the best of everything, and this album, "Kala", is a winner because of that. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but as a creative experiment, this was quite spectacular.

Three Stars.

I can't stop listening to this disc. I'm what MIA refers to as a geezer. At 50 yo, I was in a Barnes and Noble listening to discs and hoping for something to grab me that wasn't more of the same, novelty, or lip gloss on a pig. Rarely happens, but I picked up KALA and even with the 20 seconds per song could tell this was just mouth wateringly fresh and exciting.

After hearing the entire disc (over and over) I think it's really fabulous for its originality, sense of style, point of view, political passion, playfulness, and just fun. It's funny how a prerequisite for any superlative disc is that it sounds like the performers had a blast making it. Clearly the case here.

I also later bought Arular and also enjoy it, but found Kala to be more refined, inventive, accessible and distinctive. But I'll take anything I can get from this remarkable artist. M.I.A. give me more and keep us geezers happy (along with everyone else).

("Kala" by M.I.A.)

So what's a talented hip-hop artist to do after her debut draws raves from critics and an inexplicable fan base of jaded indie rockers? Record a follow-up disc with mega producer Timbaland, of course! Now that she had the cult, she might as well go for the gold (or platinum, or diamond...). Unfortunately, Uncle Sam couldn't care less about the pop charts, and M.I.A.'s resulting visa problems prevented her from spending real quality time with Timbaland. This could have sunk a lesser artist, but Maya Arulpragasm has a truly adventurous spirit and a true "vision thing" (as a certain former president might say), so she jets off around the globe to work with kindred spirits in Jamaica, Trinidad, Australia and eventually even the good old U.S. of A, and it's easy to guess that the resulting album, "Kala," is crazier and riskier than the debut, Arular. What isn't as easy, however, is that it's deeper, and in many ways better.

Starting off with three high energy dance numbers that recall her previous work, it soon becomes apparent that there are indeed major differences. The rhythms are far more complex and M.I.A.'s vocals are more confident. While she was never shy about injecting some politics into the mix (her shout-out to the PLO caused some minor controversy last time out), on the Bollywood/disco number "Jimmy" there are these sure to be discussed lyrics: "Take me on ya genocide tour/Take me on a truck to Darfur." Considering "Jimmy" is easily the most accessible track on the album, it comes off as more than a little sardonic and dark-humored.

Other highlights include "Bird Flu," with it's tribal drumming and chicken squawk sample; "20 Dollar" samples gunshot sounds and New Order's "Blue Monday" and has a lush psychedelic quality to it; "Mango Pickle Down" features some aboriginal boys called the The Willcania Mob and "Hussel" has some guest rapping by Afrikan Boy. As a whole, "Kala" is truly 21st century world music, where cutting edge production helps create a global party vibe. Instead of some embarrassing Kumbaya sing-alongs, though, M.I.A. unites the first and third worlds without ignoring the problems inherent in the proposition. Instead of coming off as some rich pop star seemingly exploiting others for a bit of knee-jerk exoticism, she allows her collaborators a full voice and meshes it perfectly with her own sensibility. Instead of becoming just another hit maker (okay, so the CD offers a free--yikes--ring tone), she'd rather have the artistic credibility of someone like Bjork.

Ironically, the weakest track here is the Timbaland produced (and guest-starring) closer, "Come Around," which is really a scrap from his recent solo album. The result is that "Kala" ends with a whimper instead of a bang. When compared with the rest of the album, a listener can only say "who needs Timbaland, anyway?" Frankly, the "global village" needs M.I.A. more than M.I.A. needs cheap pop hits.

After tasting the fame as an opening act for biter Gwen Stefani, you might think Maya "M.I.A" Arulpragasam would water down her music a little and watch the money pile up. Not so. M.I.A. returns with the most interesting, undanceable dance record of the last few years (think of all those times fell on your face trying to pull off something graceful during "Get Ur Freak On" and double the difficulty level). The beat is still present, but the rhythms and textures generally fall a few miles south from her previous efforts. The single "Boys" is an exploration of Moroccan percussion and stop/start moments that derail an easy head-nod; the hyper-compressed, neo-crunk "20 Dollar" slinks along, dirge-like, as Arulpragasam's auto-tuned vocals soar above; "Bird Flu" sounds like a scene out of an over-the-top Bollywood wedding movie, scores of drummers pounding out a serious stomp; mechanical djembes churn and synths rip under Afrikan Boy's rap of "you think it's tough now/come to Africa" on "Hussel". M.I.A. and producer Switch (Diplo and Timbaland also make appearances) gracefully turn whatever rhythm they fancy into catchy cohesion, resulting in a disorderly delight.

First of all I would like to say I really enjoyed this album. Every time I pop it into my CD player my heart beat doubles. I discovered this album while reading an article about M.I.A in the Express(a Trinidad and Tobago newspaper), which stated that M.I.A came to our country to record some of its songs. Recently I got the chance to purchase it on amazon.com since it was not available in Trinidad. I must say this this my favorite out of the three albums and deserves more attention. I would recommend this to anyone who would like to have a heart pounding listening experience from beginning to the end.

I.
It's very hard to write about a record like Kala. Not because a lot has been written already as much as because you feel like you wouldn't be doing it justice by simply stating what you liked about it. There is plenty to like, obviously. M.I.A. sounds like an aggressor you're willing to serve. Her music is abrasively tough, pumping hard, getting into your head, regardless of whether you want it there or not. Her voice sounds like a voice of a revolutionary. Some of us have no idea what she's talking about. What I relate to the most is the music: a bit of Bollywood gloss here, lots of thumping beats there, add a bit of sass and lots of trance. Sure, it can be dangerous to connect to music you don't know the message of, but how much harmful can grooving to something like this be?

II.
Even though Kala sounds tribal, it also manages to be unusually futuristic. The production is slick and modern, but never resembles a studio product. It's rather a sound of a battlefield, what with arms and fists as well as hollering and marching. I'm not interested in tracking influences or deciphering the message. What I want you to know is that this music can speak to you -- on your own level, but on M.I.A.'s terms. There are negative connotations with music that gets labeled as political, but with this much dance-inducing numbers, you're well aware that your body is not interested in politics; it wants to move. And with all the recognizable and unrecognizable layers, you're secluded to the safety of your living room, listening to cries of Sri Lanka. M.I.A. does not just sound original, she is original. She's also sharp and focused. 2007 had many victories, but none as well-earned as Kala. And if you're wondering where your money lies, it's all about what you're expecting to get. For heat-seekers and dancefloor junkies, check "XR2" and the opening track, for menacing atmospheres, check "Hussel" and "Come Around", for heart-stoppers, check "Jimmy" and "20 Dollar", etc.

III.
Regardless of whether you choose to see M.I.A. as a cold-blooded banshee or an estrogen-driven terrorist, your enjoyability of this record depends solely on how much bizarre soundscapes you're willing to take in. Kala is essentially flawed, but it shines like a sharp-edged metal in a hot, sunny desert. For those of us who simply want to shake their booty, it's a God-given. I say open your mind to a work of art that rises upon so many levels and yet stays earthbound. Rest assured, you will appreciate its peculiarities.